How to Write a Worthwhile Fic
by clichebusters
Summary: Kyle's back, but this time we're not FINDING a great story... We're freakin' WRITING ONE. [Rated T for no reason...yet.]
1. Ron's Big Idea

As Ron listened to Harry's fading footsteps, he gazed at the heinous jumble of idiocy before him.

_Just look at it,_ he thought. _These morons actually think they can write a story…_

But Ron had an idea. An idea of insane proportions. An idea that could bring the Fan Fiction world as we know it to its knees…

Ron would write a good story.

He opened Microsoft Word and stared at the blank space before him. He thought of the way things could've been in the row of books lined up next to each other on the bookcase to his right. Hermione could've failed a test, been sent into a whirlwind of depression, and went to therapy, where she would've been unable to help Harry and Ron in their dramatic victory over the forces of evil. Harry could've gone out with Pansy and made Ginny incredibly jealous, even though it was only a ploy to get Voldemort to destroy Pansy by means of getting Harry from the inside out. Mrs. Norris could've had _kittens_...

While the idea of stepping on a kitten Norris sounded appealing, Ronald simply couldn't manage to write a decent story. He pondered. He paced. He chewed his lip. He browsed the site for inspiration. After several hours had gone by (Ron had lots of free time), he came across a user that immediately caught his eye. The Cliché Busters.

_Hmm, _he thought, and clicked. Immediately he found the answer to all of his problems, thy name was 'How to Write a Worthwhile Fic'.

_Yay!_


	2. Intro From Kyle to You

**An Introduction From the Desk of Kyle Melavowig**

As I sit at my computer desk, flame some idiots, and chow on some overcooked Lean Cuisine thing, I ask myself, 'What can I do as a Cliché Buster to help the poor souls of this site who can't write a decent story to save their lives?'. And after a thoughtful gnaw on my rather chewy egg roll, I realize: The solution is simple! Give them a little push in the right direction, Kyle. Write them a tutorial.

…Well, alright. If you say so.

--

The purpose of this tutorial should already be apparent. And if your head is buried far enough into your nether regions not to be able to understand quite yet, I've got some choice insults I'm vibe-ing in your direction. Sucks to be you.

Anyway, yes, I'm going to show you the ways of the exceptionable writer (in my own objectionable opinion), and, consequently, the exceptional story. My thoughts you may or may not agree with, but I've done my research. Listen carefully and follow my steps, and you'll have a story worthy of sticking you in our Hall of Fame. Well, alright, maybe that's pushing it… But seriously, how COOL would that BE?

…You hopeless people're in for it.

Heh. People're.

Ahem.

By the way, I'll probably just be using Harry Potter as my examples hereafter… Basically just because it happens to be both the most popular on the site and my area of supreme expertise. I'm nerdy like that.

Oh, and another by the way, my Lean Cuisine was extremely awesome, overcooked or not.

_**Kyle Melavowig  
Cliché Busters, Inc.**_


	3. PreStory Tools for My Main Man Bucky

**Chapter One: Some Important Pre-Story Tools**

Oh, I know. Goat forbid you make any pre-writing preparations. Well, suck it up, Bucky (can I call you Bucky?), because here, time is quality. And quality, my friend, is… um, quality.

1.Writing Style

The first thing I'd like to mention is more of a graduate-as-you-write kind of thing. Your writing style is basically a certain pattern or technique that an author sometimes uses to make his or her story their ownandunique to their writing… Mostly without even thinking about it. It's kind of hard to explain, but after reading a certain author's different works you tend to notice a certain similarity that they use over and over again out of habit. I love figuring these out… Take my sister Danae versus our good buddy Kara. They've both been writing for at least three years, and they've each developed their own styles, slowly but surely. Danae tends to use choppier sentences, sometimes taking a jump into the character's mind. Kara pops metaphors out like my mother's best Italian friend pops out little Italian children (who have a strange obsession with trying to destroy my left shin with plastic swords and unnecessary hiking boots... bloody hiking boots...), and likes lists. Take a look at some old stories of theirs and try to see what I mean…

**Excerpt from 'Change: Diapers, a Piece of Banana, and the World' by Danae Melavowig (aka, starsnmoons91)**

**Oh, Mum, he took it away. He took it away, Mum! What are you going to do about your husband? Hmm? What? Surely YOU know how it feels to… Oh, you don't. That big toothy grin of yours. It makes my heart melt, Mum. It's the same with James. He talks about you when he rocks me to bed. Your smile, your pretty hair, the eyes you gave me… Somehow… I'm not quite sure how that works, but my dad says I have good genes. I don't know what that means, Mum. Genes. Didn't you tell me you wore them the other day? I wish you would answer me every once in a while. Lily. I like your name. I really like it, Mum. I- MOTHER, PICK ME BACK UP!**

**Excerpt from 'Shallow' by Kara Rhinehardt (aka pippagethetook01)**

**Harry felt no emotion. There was no grief, anger, melancholy, nothing, until a spark lit in the very foundation of his heart, which had stopped…Years? Minutes? Seconds?...an unusually long time ago. This ember, while small, was like a switch turning on a million lights all at once. He felt once again. **

**What it was that he felt was hard to say, really. An atypical jumble of remorse, grief, loss…but most of all, anger, odium, malice. He stood up, and with a huge swish of his wand, threw an advancing death eater against a wall so hard that a rather satisfying crack was heard.**

**The corners of Harry's eyes were red, and he did not consider the staggering odds. He lifted his wand high and a bronze dome formed all around him. Random curses, jinxes, words flew out of his mouth like falcons, not a one missing its target. The last one pulled Ron into the bubble and then he Apparated both of them into a small dark room.**

Spotted? I really hope so, Bucky, because this is kind of hard to explain.

Anyway, the best way to develop a writing style is simply to write! No beginner has one yet. I think. But forgetting I said that, you probably won't even realize you HAVE a unique technique (AN UNUSUAL RHYME!) until you sit there and think about it.

It's one of those nice things to have. Kind of like a dog. I can think of SOOO many metaphorical similarities betwixt the two… But I won't bother you with things like how they can both help you out in a pickle, serve recreational purposes... All that kind of stuff.

2. A Plan

In all honesty, I must say that I feel like a complete hypocrite for even adding this to the tutorial. All but a total of one multi-chapter stories I have EVER written had a planned ending, and that ending was iffy. But this is just a tool chapter, so I'm safe. My beloved One-Shots back me up, too.

A plan is good for several reasons. First off, it is a much easier way to keep your story on track. When you have a destination in mind, it makes it that much easier to get there.

Another is time. Since you've got your story organized and figured out, you'll be able to get there that much faster instead of thinking up somewhere to go chapter after chapter. Who likes a great story that takes a year to read?

And the last thing I can think of (tee hee) is for your own sake. How hard would it be to put a good mystery together when you have no idea what the resolution will be? I mean, maybe that's my inner can't-write-a-good-mystery-worth-curdled-milk coming out, but I'm just trying to give a good example. Okay? STOP YELLING AT ME, BUCKY!

3. A Good Writing Program

Don't even get me started. DON'T FREAKING DO IT.

Alright, too late.

A good writing program (such as Microsoft Word XP) is crazy important. It's like… (and here we see my metaphorical grandeur…) if Notepad was black paper and Word was white paper- with spell check- and you had a black pen, which would you rather write on?

…Okay, that was stupid.

But you get my point, right?

Just forget the last four sentences.

Basically, Buckster, all I care about in a program are two very important things: Your Three Main Doo-Dads (SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE CALLED…) and Spell Check. The former of which isn't completely necessary, and the latter being almost as important as the words you write themselves.

The Three Doo-Dads (You know them as **bold, **_italics, _and underlines), I think, make adding your story to the site ten million times easier. Of all the acceptable documents on Fan Fiction, all but Notepad (which SUCKS BOLOGNA PUREE) carry these thingies over from the original document to the Doc Manager. That's all I have to say about that.

Now, Spell Check. Notice I capitalize 'Spell Check'. This is because Spell Check is very, VERY IMPORTANT. Spell Check has saved me from many an embarrassing typo and has probably auto-fixed even more. Spell Check loses its beauty-osity when morons disregard it.

And that's all I have to say about that.

…Spell Check.

**_The next Luchadore to wear some sweet and stretchy recreational pants,  
_****_Kyle Ignatious Melavowig, the freakin' FIRST AND ONLY_**


	4. Cliche List

**The Big, Fat Cliché List**

_**Cower in fear!**_

Alright, so, basically, I decided that I needed a little 'cliché' list, just to help you guys out on the 'not writing a clichéd story' thing. How freakin' nice of me.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE submit in a review or PM any clichés you would like to add to the list, preferably with 2 or more story titles I can check out in case I've never even heard of the cliché. No, that's stupid. Just give me clichés. I trust you, Bucky!

Harry Potter only, thanks. Gotta keep up with the theme, you know. Unless there's something that EVERY SINGLE FIC in a certain category includes.

Also, I really don't think you can call a certain pairing cliché… Just because lots of people have written about a certain pairing like, say, Draco/Hermione (which I completely HATE, but whatever), doesn't mean you can't find a creative way to get them to be together… HINT FREAKIN' HINT.

--

1. An American Mary Sue comes to Hogwarts. And snogs everyone.

2. A female main character (Hermione or Ginny, usually) gets a makeover. And snogs everyone.

3. Some play or dance is started at Hogwarts. And then everyone goes and sings karaoke and starts a freakin' rock band. With some sweet g-tars.

4. FIELD TRIP!

5. Harry and Draco or some other pair of 'forbidden lovers' sneak around. And snog each other constantly. And that's about it.

6. The 'Golden Trio' (gag) get thrown back into the Marauder's time. And everyone lives and is happily ever after in the later Potter years.

7. Sirius or Dumbledore MIRACULOUSLY COME BACK TO LIFE! Or they just NEVER DIED!

8. Lily Evans and her sissy friends go all girly over the Marauders.

9. Not-that-awesome prank wars. These kids have magic. They can come up with better stuff than this, really. Oh, and everyone either hates or loves Sirius afterwards.

10. Strip poker and risqué truth-or-dare. Have you ever noticed that these kids have hardly any hormones? Yeah, keep it that way.

11. Main character A becomes a weird creature (part one) and main character B tries to help them out and usually falls 'N LUV WIT DEM!' (part two)

12. Main character A and main character B (who are usually COMPLETELY OOC…) switch bodies. Fun ensues. Stupid fun, that is.

13. Main character A proclaims their profound, long-lasting love for main character B. Of course, main character B feels just the same way! –snog-

14. Snape is suddenly –GASP- dead sXXXy n every1 wants ta get all MAKEY OUTY WIT HIM. And Remus is usually EXTREMELY gay. And sometimes, they end up together. But usually they just hit on everyone. Whatever you choose.

15. Porn Without Plot (PWP). That's… 'bout it. (SENSUALLY! –go read Crap-)

16. The world of HP was all just a really big, vague, painful dream… -Insert Twilight Zone music HURR.-

17. AU'd Harry is really… A SLYTHERIN! And OMFG, him and Draco (SOOOOOOO hawt!) are, like, BFFs.

18. Anything Dudders based. Dudley being IN LUV WIT HARRRRRY, Dudley being raped by a lovesick Dementor, or being –don't say it!- nice.

19. Harry gets MAN RAPED by Lucius, Vernon, Dumbledore, Draco, Ron, a Weasley, a Black… Mrs. Norris.

20. Weasleycest (See TWINCEST)/ Malfoycest/ Blackcest. I made a song for this one: INCEST! IS THE BEST! SO TAKE YOUR COUSIN FOR A TEST! (BOW!)

21. Sirius was really loved. Just… loved. By his family. Everybody loves Sirius.

22. Lily was really Lillian, a Ravenclaw, gettin' jiggy with Snape, and probably tutoring him, too.

23. And, of course, since everyone has a best buddy, they've got to be 'sexin' dem all ovah da place'. You know?

24. Draco is just a poor, misunderstood soul. Hermione, Ginny, or Harry snog him back to confidence. Maybe even Mrs. Norris.

25. A certain girl (who has a sudden thing with using 'EHMAGAW' and 'BFF') always has a really loud stereo and can play songs from the future, which they know by heart and always sing along into their wands/hairbrushes (some big-timers: 'Hips Don't Lie', 'Dontcha', and 'Buttons'). Just a tip: The HP series is set in the mid-90's. And they listen to the Weird Sisters, anyway, NOT SHAKIRA OR THE PUSSYCAT DOLLS. GRUNGE ERA, PEOPLE.

26. Forgotten, Nice, or Homosexual Peter. (Marauder years stuff)

27. SUPERHORMONE'D!Harry. We're talking... things better left behind doors.

28. Super love triangles.

29. The kids are having babies. I can't say it's not probable (my own mother had me when she was 16…), but it's just…weird. Harry Potter kids… having babies at this age… No. They're FAR too busy!

30. Lily + James Head B'GRL. Then they fall in SWEET SWEET LOVE.

31. The Girlie diaries. NO ONE WANTS TO READ AN EMOTIONAL TEENAGE GIRL'S DIARY!

32. Idiot!Hermione/Ginny/Lily fics. They're actually really smart, guys… Probably smarter than you.

…And that's all I've got so far. Kind of pathetic.

(Thanks to Jubexchix for 9.-11., The Miss Marauders for adding to 6. and 7., and for 13.-23. and 26.-30., and Rezallia for 31. and 32.)

Remember, add to the list!

_**A purple llama no more,  
Kyle Melavowig**_


End file.
